Despite a flurry of scrappage schemes, new car registrations have continued to falter, with falling businesses and consumer confidence being blamed for the drop in demand. Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, is calling on the Government to provide support for the automotive industry, which supports 170,000 jobs in the UK.

“We urge the Government to use the forthcoming Autumn Budget to restore stability to the market, encouraging the purchase of the latest low emission vehicles,” said Hawes.

“Declining business and consumer confidence is undoubtedly affecting demand in the new car market but this is being compounded by confusion over government policy on diesel.”

Dealers reported 10 per cent fewer private buyers taking delivery of new cars in October, while demand for business and fleet vehicles were down by a respective 27 and 13 per cent. The results represent the seventh consecutive month of decline for new car registrations and the SMMT predicts that the market will end the year on 2.5 million units – a five per cent fall on 2016.

Comments

oldroverboy.
on 7 November 2017

There is no "confusion" on Government Policy on diesel.
The Industry shot itself in the foot "hiding" the truth about Nox pollution.

They've had it good for a few years enticing people on to PCP's and thereby locking them into the 3 year average purchase cycle, and now the wind is blowing cold, all of a sudden they Urgently need help...

Perhaps if they had not ramped up the prices so much over the last few years, they might find it easier to sell new cars. A Ford Focus or equivalent, stating at £19,500 before discount is a big jump from a few years ago. The public are also wise to the ripoff charges ie. for any other colour than an entry level dark blue etc. The same car can be found abroad with no additional cost for a range of colour options.

Sales may have dropped when compared to 2016, because 2016 was one of the highest years for vehicle registrations. So after a couple of years of fairly good sales, guess what, the sales figures have gone down, no doubt due to increases in list prices and changes in VED.

We are hardly back to 2008 levels, where, taking October as an example month, there looks to have been c.125,000 cars registered, compared to Oct 2017's 158,192 cars.
Using those figures, I'd say that Oct 2017 wasn't a bad year for new car registrations.

Just wait in a few years time when the Government realise how much pollution is being caused by electric cars. Lithium for the batteries has to travel 1000's of miles by petroleum powered transport, also an extract from a recent newspaper article,